Scheme

Denny Oliver - vocals, guitar, keyboards

Rab McEwan - vocals, (bass 83 - 93)

John Smith - guitar, vocals, keyboards

Des Osborne - drums (83 -93)

George Wright - saxophone, percussion

Tam Stewart - drums (78 - 80)

Jim Smith - bass (78 - 80)

Tam Doyle - drums (80 - 83)

Alan Sinclair - bass (80 -83)

Sound Engineer - Peter Pirrie

Scheme must go down in Scottish history as one of the most successful bands never to get any proper recognition from a record company, in no way was this a reflection on their ability as song writers, musicians or performers, but there was a lack of balls from any major record label to take the band on because of the lyrical content of some of their material, by today’s standards Scheme’s lyrics are quite tame in comparison, there is also the common view that Scheme refused to be changed or be molded into anything other than what they were, In your face, straight to the point with attitude, this appealed to the average person in Glasgow's schemes and the band had the life experience, musical know how and ability to back it up.

Originally calling themselves ‘Oliver’s Army’ the band’s original members were Denny Oliver, Rab McEwan, John Smith, Jim Smith and drummer Tam Stewart who had just finished a tour in Japan with the band ‘SHORTY’. John’s older brother - bass player Jim Smith had a big influence in getting the band to work on tight 3 and 4 part harmonies, they used this to good effect in songs such as ‘CND’ and ‘Biggs’ which became a part of Scheme’s trademark sound with multi harmonized A cappella vocals.

The band played in pubs and clubs in the east end of Glasgow like The Dalriada and The El Paso in Barlanark and the Centaur Bar in Easterhouse, they steadily built up a following playing cover songs, gradually incorporating their own material mainly written by Denny with a couple written by John. In 1981 They changed their name to Scheme and it wasn’t long before their set was mostly self written. Scheme started to play gigs in the centre of Glasgow in places like The Dial Inn, The Muscular Arms, Toffs, and Maxwell Plumbs very rapidly building a massive fan base Inspiring their song ‘Growing Stronger’.

It was around this time that the band caught the attention of Scottish musician John Martyn who had earlier worked with Scheme’s bass player Alan Sinclair. Martyn loved the song Young Warrior and persuaded the band to record the song to be released as a single, they brought in Jim Prime (pre Deacon Blue) to play keyboards on the recording but Denny Oliver was not happy with the recorded version of the song and nothing came of the single. They did however make studio recordings of 3 other songs - Bow Out Maggie, Keep Your Head Up and Inner City Kids all recently penned by Denny and broadcast on Radio Clyde in 1981.

In the summer of 1982 Scheme brought out an E.P. single under their own label ‘Schemesongs’ with four tracks including Growing Stronger, All Grown Up, C.N.D and Your Eyes. later on that year on the 29th of December 1982, BBC Radio Scotland broadcast a full gig live from a venue in Largs.

Unemployment in the UK was reaching record levels in the early 80s with unemployment numbers reaching 5 million by 1983, Scheme decided to take part in ‘The Peoples March For Jobs’ campaign, the idea being that folk from major cities from all over the UK would march from their own city, meeting up in London for the main demonstration / protest. Scheme took part in the march walking from Glasgow and playing in towns and cities on the way down to London with a final concert taking place at The Crystal Palace Bowl. This inspired Denny to write the song ‘Sing Some Reggae’ with a rap about the March at the beginning of the song.

In late1983 the band had a slight line up change with a new drummer in Des Osborne and Rab taking over on bass from Alan Sinclair. Scheme’s popularity started to outgrow the venues they were playing and they were headlining most of the outdoor concerts in Glasgow at that time. The pinnacle of their playing career was when they sold out Glasgow’s legendary Apollo on the 8th of September 1984, the only unsigned band ever to achieve this, they played regularly in the Pavilion Theatre as by now the capacity of local venues was getting too small to hold their fans, this was never heard of before and will probably never be repeated again by a local band.

TV appearances include, a news report on ‘The Peoples march for Jobs’ in 1983 with footage of the band singing an acoustic version of ‘Bow out Maggie’, they appeared on a Scottish topical discussion program called ‘Talk Back’ playing two songs on each of the shows, the band also wrote the Talk Back theme song. Channel four made a documentary called ‘Innocent As Hell’ in 1986 dedicated to Scheme, looking at the bands local success with clips from a concert they played in George square in Glasgow and one of the Pavilion performances, the documentary went into depth on what their songs where about and why the band and their songs where so ‘controversial’. In the documentary Denny Oliver vented his frustration with a slightly emotional comment about the bands music, saying “We just write songs about the schemes and people in schemes, I could easily write 20 quiet love songs but that’s not what we're about” with John Smith adding “The band is controversial and always will be controversial, but without that, we wouldn't be Scheme“. The documentary also had interviews with Jimmy Boyle, Billy Sloan, local fans and Glasgow councilor William Aitken who was exactly type of authority figure half of the bands lyrics were aimed at.

Scheme brought out their long awaited first album called ‘Black and Whites’ in 1986 with an equal mix of rock and reggae tracks recorded at Cava Studios in Glasgow, a few years later they recorded two home made albums called ‘Late Again’ and ‘Non Returnable’ with some re-recordings of old standards like ‘Innocent as Hell’ and ‘Keep your Head Up' as well as a more blues orientated selection of songs that included a brilliant version of ‘Seagull' on 'Non Returnable' very rarely ever played live.

The band’s repertoire had some hard hitting and ‘controversial’ songs like ‘Jailed for the weed’ ‘Another Five years’ and ‘Bow out Maggie’ tackling subjects from legalizing marijuana to getting rid of Margaret Thatcher, then there were the anti war numbers like ‘Young Warrior’ ‘Self destruct’ and C.N.D these songs all had a message but what was almost never written about was that these songs, mostly written by Denny Oliver were well crafted songs incorporating tight three part harmonies, brilliantly executed guitar solos with catchy as hell choruses. It was always a misconception that Scheme were just a protest band, they had a lot of positive non political numbers like ‘Keep your head up’ ‘I’ll Change Tomorrow’ ‘Turn On Tune In’ and ‘Growing stronger’, these were all good clean pop/rock songs that if ever given the chance would have stood up to anything being aired at that time.

Scheme truly were a phenomenon, what they achieved as a band is still unmatched to this day, no band has ever sold out the Glasgow Apollo, The Glasgow Pavilion and the Kelvin Hall without a record contract, It's amazing that they received little to no recognition in the music industry, maybe they were too controversial, maybe they should have changed or conformed to be accepted, but no, Scheme did it their way, even if the cost was not getting that ‘big record contract’. Scheme existed to to play great music with strong, opinionated lyrics, to bring enjoyment to the average person in the street during the bleak times of Thatcher’s 80s, they sang out loud and proud for their own, the people from the schemes - that is why they were known as The Peoples Band.

Scheme profile written by Tommy Devlin in 2006 - updated in 2025.

Denny Oliver, The brains behind Scheme, a prolific song writer and the musical director of the band along with John, if you where at your first Scheme gig you could be forgiven for thinking Denny was the rhythm guitarist who sang some of the songs every once in a while, by the end of a gig you know better, with the odd look or nod to the rest of the band you realize he was the guy in charge, his voice was very different to Rab McEwan more Rasping and laid back in songs such as ‘Growing Stronger’ and ‘All grown up’. Denny passed away in 2020 and was acknowledged in The House of Commons for his contributions to music and charity.

John Smith, lead guitarist with Scheme, he was known mostly for his guitar solos and catchy guitar riffs, every once in a while he would blow you away with a last chord of the song guitar lick that would have you looking around the room for Clapton or Gilmour. He got the chance to let loose on songs like ‘Jailed For The Weed’ and ‘Well Alright’ full of guitar riffs and solos. He also had a major role in the production of most of the band’s studio work and helped Denny Oliver with the song writing. John was the 3rd singer in Scheme singing the bass parts in the band’s 3 part harmonies, he also sang lead vocals on a few of the songs such as ‘Sixteen today’ and ‘Come On Young Lady’.

Rab McEwan had a very strong voice very similar to Colin Hay from ‘Men At Work’ a band which Scheme were always compared to. Rab had one of the best voices in the Glasgow rock scene, never a note out of tune, he did not always play bass with the band he only took over on bass in 1983 when the band settled down to the five members that carried on until the 90s.

George Wright

Des Osborne

The Growing Stronger EP from 1982 and The Embossed SCHEME Black and Whites LP and rare cassette version of the album released in 1986.

Original Scheme line up with Tam Doyle - drums and Alan Sinclair - bass.

Big Thanks to Tony Hodgon and Joe O'Rourke for providing these very rare photos of the Apollo tickets and the 1984 Scheme Apollo Programme.

Filming the Innocent as Hell Documentary from 1986.

John Martyn talking about the nearly released single - Young Warrior.

The band amongst the crowd during the Peoples March For Jobs in 1983.

Peter Pirrie, Scheme’s sound engineer - He broke down boundaries in the live music circuit with Scheme, using to excellent effect echo, chorus or flange effects to vocals and guitars Peter contributed big time to the live Scheme sound producing a live mix that would take weeks to reproduce in a studio, Peter has to be credited for giving the band it’s big, distinctive live sound.